I Hate the Architect
by Aurora Sanders
Summary: When the TARDIS malfunctions after Last Christmas, Twelve and Clara land in a parallel universe (like the Age of Steel universe). But Eleven, who has not regenerated yet, loses his Clara and mistakes Clara for her...and Clara doesn't really mind. Soundtrack: /aurorasanders/i-hate-the-architect (Only the prologue is currently up, but there will be more)
1. Prologue

"Just...don't even argue." That had been what he'd said, and she hadn't. All of time and space, a madman in a box and his impossible girl. How _could _she have said no? Danny was dead, and a job teaching English at Coal Hill School hardly matched up to travelling through time and space with the Doctor. It seemed like fate just wanted them to be together.

Clara skimmed her hand over the surface of the TARDIS control, and the TARDIS made a friendly beep. Even the TARDIS wanted Clara back.

"She likes you now, eh?" The Doctor smiled down at her, and Clara looked up at him. "Suppose so."

"You're doing that again. The sad smile. Stop it. It doesn't make sense." The Doctor sighed.

"Okay." She forced a smile. "I'm going to go up to my room. See you tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Clara," the Doctor called after her as she climbed the stairs. He'd said she should stop the sad smiling, but he wa doing it too. They both knew that whatever they had was fragile. It was time to stop pretending.

But not tonight.


	2. Collateral Damage

The next morning, Clara stumbles down from her room with blurry morning vision, still half delirious from the whole experience with the dream crabs and flying on Santa's sleigh. The Doctor immediately turns around when he sees her. Clara remembers how he'd leaned into her touch the previous night and how he'd declared that okay, he'd hold _her _hand but no one else's, and how on the second day of his regeneration he'd told her that she should never change and he was happy playing her games. He's besotted, that's the problem. Because it's never going to last, either he'll regenerate or she'll have to leave or _something. _

"So. Where are we off too, Doctor?" She leans against the wall of the TARDIS, ignoring the thoughts, because that's what they've always been about. Running.

"Cardiff, Wales. Time to refuel." He tells her.

"You refuel a _time machine_ at Cardiff, Wales?" she demands.

"Yes!" He looks at her like she's crazy. "Of course I do. There's a rift on time and space, and it's particularly active in January 2007."

"Don't you ever run into yourself?" Clara asks.

"No." He smiles triumphantly. "Last time, two faces ago, was at a _different _time in January 2007."

Clara can't help be a little amused. The Doctor looks like a little boy, like he did when he was Eleven, dodging himself to get to the rift at the best time. "Okay, let's go."

"Yes, boss," he says, and hits the controls.

"I'm refueling the TARDIS. You go do whatever young women do in Cardiff," Twelve makes a dismissive hand-waving gesture.

Clara rolls her eyes, and looks around for any place that could possibly be interesting. She doesn't know how long the refueling will take.

"Clara!"

Clara would know that voice anywhere, and it's not Twelve. _"Danny?_" she calls out in shock, tears beading in her eyes.

He appears, behind her. "Clara. I need your help. You can save me!"

"No. This is a vision. This isn't real." She's trying to hold back tears, and it doesn't work.

"I'm lost, Clara. Take the Doctor to Torchwood and get him to open the rift. He can do it. Please. I love you."

She's calling out for him, but he just keeps on repeating that she can find him, she can rescue him, she can get the Doctor to open the rift. And then he fades.

She stumbles back and knocks into a young man with dark hair, who's just run out a bar near her. His expression is as lost as hers, and unless he's someone who hears voices or something, she's pretty sure he's seen the same thing as her.

"Did you see him too?" Clara points to the air that Danny was in. "A black man with metal all around his body? Talking about opening the rift and Torchwood?"

"Did you see a woman? Kind of looked like Audrey Hepburn? Sort of like you but with curlier hair? Talking about Owen?" He's breathing heavily.

"No." Clara shakes her head in absolute confusion. "What's going _on?_"

"I don't know, but if you're involved I need to bring you to Torchwood." He grabs her arm and she tries to twist away, but he is _strong. _

"We can make this easy, sweetheart, or we can make this hard." He snarls at her.

She stops struggling and lets him bring her along. If they can find Danny, she's coming.

The Doctor finishes refueling the TARDIS and looks around, only to see Clara disappearing into what appears to be an invisible wall nearby the rift.

"Of _course. _Torchwood. Always Torchwood." There _was _all sorts of energy floating around in the air, but he attributed it to the rift. He was to preoccupied with refueling to realize that something was wrong. And now _Clara's _been kidnapped. He almost runs his hands through his hair like he used to do when he was Eleven. But he can enter Torchwood, right? A quick blast of the sonic reveals the entrance, and he steps on the platform and sonics it.

"Oh, shit. What happened?" Clara hears Owen ask as he steps into the Torchwood hub. He looks toward another brunette with a police badge who's holding her. "Are you alright?"

"Harper. We do _not _need you picking up _another _brunette time traveler." A man with an American accent points at Clara.

"Me?" Clara asks. "How…how did you.." While Owen speaks over her. "Harkness, you've fired me, and I can do whatever I damn please. She needs our help!"

"Do you know the Doctor?" Clara asks while Owen demands, "How many other people have got to suffer? I'm opening the rift."

The American appears very confused as to who to talk to first. A tall man following Owen clears that up. "Make sure you stop him," The American tells the second man.

"No." The second man says emphatically, and a Japanese woman adds, "We're helping him."

The other brunette in the American's arms pushes him away, saying something about Bilis being right. Whoever Bilis is.

"Gwen!" the American calls out as she walks away.

_Okay, so I know one more name…_Clara thinks to herself. The man who first brought her here is Owen (or Harper?) the American is Harkness, and the brunette is Gwen.

"You said something about the Doctor? Are you his companion?" Harkness fixes his gaze on Clara.

"Um, sort of. We used the word carer once?" Clara's trying very hard to not break down, lose control.

"Carer?" Harkness makes a face.

"Um, I care so that he doesn't have to…" Clara explains.

"That doesn't sound like my Doctor," Harkness makes a face.

"What….what did he use to be like?" Clara asks. "The other time he visited you in January of this year?"

Harkness looks at her with a raised eyebrow, and Clara realizes this visit probably hasn't happened yet. "Never mind. Before."

"Enter Emergency Protocol One," one of the voices says, and Gwen cuts in. "Out of my way. I'll do this."

As they babble, trying to enact Emergency Protocol One, a sharp voice calls out, "Clara! You can't let them."

"Doctor?" Clara spins around.

"Clara! You can't let them initiate the protocol! People will die!" The Doctor tells her.

"Danny _is _dead. And I'm going to bring him back," Clara declares.

"What, so P.E. can shoot another boy and cry about it? Or so you can keep on lying to him? And me? Give it up, control freak, you can't control this one."

Tears spark in Clara's eyes because never, not once, has the Doctor been this deliberately mean to her. Sure, there have been the little comments about her hips or whatever, but she was able to shut those down and he was _never _this mean.

Harkness is staring at his team. "Oh my God, what have you done?" He turns to the Doctor, after hearing all he said to Clara. "And who have _you _become?"

"Clara. TARDIS. Now. Before we get any more involved in events." Twelve says sharply.

"But Danny…" Clara trails off, because even though the rift has been opened it doesn't look like he's appeared anywhere. Jack and Gwen are running out of the Hub, and Owen is smashing things. Clara supposes his Audrey-Hepburn-lookalike didn't come back, either.

"_Now._" Twelve's angrier than Clara's ever seen him, and for the second time that day someone's grabbing her and pulling her.

The TARDIS looks different, like it did on the days that the Doctor activated the TARDIS telepathic interface. She remembers something vaguely about the Doctor saying he had to take the safeguards down to fuel it up.

"But Danny might be back…" Clara protests, although the TARDIS is already flying away and she knows it can't work

"Not my fault he brought some little boy that he killed back instead of him!" The Doctor declares.

"I never would've distracted him and made him walk into traffic if I hadn't had to explain _you _to him! He never liked you, and he was right!"

"Not my problem. Not my responsibility. Collateral damage." The Doctor shrugs and looks at the screen of the TARDIS. "So, going home and cooling off, then coming back next Wednesday, or are we actually going somewhere interesting?"

_I can't believe you, _Clara thinks. _You think I'm so predictable. Well, I'll show you unpredictable. _"Harkness was right. You're not his Doctor anymore. And you're not _my _Doctor anymore. I shouldn't have to be your carer." She spits, putting her hands on the TARDIS console.

"Clara! Don't!" The Doctor calls, actually looking panicked. She hasn't seen him this scared of her since she threw the TARDIS keys into the volcano, and she's relishing it. She's back in control like it should be.

"What, scared of my words, Doctor?" Clara laughs, hardly noticing the orange goop sucking her fingers in. "You know what, I wish you never regenerated. I loved him. I realized I loved him when he regenerated. But I don't love you. How can I? You're a monster, an alien!"

"Clara! You don't know what you're doing!" The TARDIS is rocking back and forth, and she laughs. "Telling you the truth is what I'm doing, Doctor. After all this time."

"No. Look at your hands." Clara looks down, and sees her hands stuck in the TARDIS telepathic interface. The TARDIS lands, and releases her.

"Where…are we?" Clara asks. Nothing looks different.

"Well, seeing as you told the TARDIS you wished I'd never regenerated, you're lucky I'm not dead." Twelve scoffs. "Maybe your precious Danny is back. Hope it was worth it."

"Well, let's see what's outside, then," the Doctor declares after a pause.

Clara rushes out of the TARDIS, and turns a corner. They appear to have landed in an alleyway somewhere. "Geronimo," Twelve says sarcastically, running ahead of her, and bumps into a man.

"Hey," he says, stepping back and angrily adjusting his bow tie, "that's _my _line."


End file.
